This is the reality of it.
The sun beats down with dead, blistering, relentless malignity; the
perspiration is welling from every pore in man and beast, but scarcely a
sign of it finds its way to the surface--it is absorbed before it gets
there; there is not the faintest breath of air stirring; there is not a
merciful shred of cloud in all the brilliant firmament; there is not a
living creature visible in any direction whither one searches the blank
level that stretches its monotonous miles on every hand; there is not a
sound--not a sigh--not a whisper--not a buzz, or a whir of wings, or
distant pipe of bird--not even a sob from the lost souls that doubtless
people that dead air. And so the occasional sneezing of the resting
mules, and the champing of the bits, grate harshly on the grim stillness,
not dissipating the spell but accenting it and making one feel more
lonesome and forsaken than before.
The mules, under violent swearing, coaxing and whip-cracking, would make
at stated intervals a "spurt," and drag the coach a hundred or may be two
hundred yards, stirring up a billowy cloud of dust that rolled back,
enveloping the vehicle to the wheel-tops or higher, and making it seem
afloat in a fog.
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